Scheme for toilets in rural areas makes little headway

Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan is a community-led sanitation programme initiated by Government of India in 1999.

The report card of various states is a shocker, for most of the states could not even achieve 70 per cent of the target set for them. (Source: PTI)

While much is being said and done about construction of individual household toilets and school sanitation, the slow pace of construction of toilets in rural areas is a reason worth worrying . The data by Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation reveals that most of the states have failed to achieve the set target for the construction of toilets under the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan.

Background: Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan – earlier called Total Sanitation Campaign – is a community-led sanitation programme initiated by Government of India in 1999. It is a demand-driven and people-centered sanitation program. It evolved from the limited achievements of the first structured programme for rural sanitation in India, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, which had minimal community participation. The main goal of Total Sanitation Campaign is to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2017.

The programme aims at building households toilets for below poverty line (BPL) families and above poverty line (APL) families in rural areas, school toilets, sanitary complexes and Anganwadi toilets. The report card of various states is a shocker, for most of the states could not even achieve 70 per cent of the target set for them.

Out of all the states under the programme, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir have performed below average. While Punjab could achieve

The data give below is the physical performance of Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan in some of the worst performing cities. While all the data is for the above poverty line households, the data for Amritsar is for the below poverty line households.